I love this card. It makes for some really crazy games with multiple players or EDH. Here's an idea that developed once my friends and I saw Worldfire. Run you can pull this off for serious laughs.
1) Play Manabarbs.
2) Cast Oblivion Ring.
3) Cast Worldfire.
This drops every player to 1 Life, and exiles their entire hand, field, and graveyard, and with Oblivion Ring leaving the battlefield, each player now has 1 Life with a Manabarbs active on the field!
Posted By:
Saoshyant_4329
(7/18/2012 9:45:02 AM)
I'm happy they kept the Kamahl flavor text.
Posted By:
sonorhC
(7/7/2011 10:17:08 PM)
Arbor elf is strictly better than llanowar elves, eh? This will shut them up.
Posted By:
Tommy9898
(7/9/2011 2:11:09 PM)
Imagine this in Elves.
I'll wait.
Done? good.
HOLY CRAP!!! Any deck that can get away with not tapping lands (Elves, Myrs, etc) is gonna LOVE this!
Posted By:
WateryMind
(7/7/2011 7:42:21 PM)
No tworainclouds, you die right after taping the lands for mana before your Timely Reinforcement spell can resolve.
I remember when I was young and a complete noob to Magic (around edition 4 or 5). I had managed to get a cheap playset of those and was playing them in a deck of elves. The plan was pretty much to get all my mana from the elves I was playing while the others suffered from the cursed Manabarbs.
We were playing in large free for alls so as soon as I played this card everyone would try to bring me down, it was hilarious! XD
Anyway there are a few ways to correctly play manabarbs and your opponent will pretty much always suffer some damage simply by casting a spell to remove it (if he can...)
Option 1: Play it in a deck that has other sources of mana than lands
Option 2: Play it in a deck that can prevent the damage dealt by Manabarbs. Personal Sanctuary is the most obvious one for M12. There is also Hedron-Field Purist and other ... (see all)
Posted By:
Diab0l0
(8/1/2011 11:15:38 PM)
If we're doing a 
deck with Personal Sanctuary already, add Vengeful Archon to the list.
End of opponent's turn, tap out for X and repoint the X damage at your opponent's face. (Just make sure you're clear on your intention to tap out and float mana first, and then activate the Archon.)
Posted By:
Artscrafter
(7/28/2011 1:06:17 PM)
Would love to play this with Personal Sanctuary. My tapping lands, no damage to me; your tapping lands, bad news for you.
Posted By:
Ange-Gardien
(7/19/2011 12:55:29 PM)
Diab0l0 is completely right; perhaps the best use for Manabarbs is to sideboard it into aggro (or possibly burn) against slower decks, particularly control. Since you've sideboarded and your opponent knows you're going aggro, they'll probably switch out those Oblivion Rings for Day of Judgment (or other universal hate for creature hate). Say you deal 12 damage before the turn four board wipe (actually that's pretty low), and you follow up with your own turn four Manabarbs. Now your opponent can activate seven mana for the remainder of the game. Plus, your life should be really high, and your cards don't cost much mana anyways, so if you lose, it won't be because of Manabarbs damage. It's hard to get that assurance from any other aggro (particularly red aggro) card.
Timely Reinforcements will hurt - a lot. But that's more a measure of Timely Reinforcements... (see all)
Posted By:
Lyoncet
(8/20/2011 11:30:15 AM)
I am so happy I can build a standard deck around this card.
SO HAPPY.
Posted By:
Deco_y
(7/7/2011 8:56:17 PM)